Integral Options Cafe

Friday, July 18, 2008

Bird and Fortune - Financial Adviser

Hilarious.

America’s War on Sex: The Contraception Battle

Truthdig presents some questions for John McCain from Dr. Marty Klein, author of “America’s War on Sex: The Attack on Law, Lust and Liberty.” Apparently McCain fumbled a question about Viagra versus birth control last week - watch the video:

From Klein's website, Sexual Intelligence (I added more text than Truthdig porovided):

In response to a statement by one of his top campaign advisers, John McCain was recently asked, “Is it fair that insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control?”

As this video shows, he said, with a nervous laugh, “I certainly do not want to discuss that issue.”

It’s an answer begging for a punch line:
* He’s too old to need birth control, and too hard to need Viagra.
* His campaign pays for the Viagra.
* Politics gets him hard, and no one on the left OR right will sleep with him anyway.

But since we’re on the subject, Senator, here are some other questions about fairness and sex we’d like your opinion on:

* Is it fair that teens can be jailed for having consensual sex with other teens?
* Is it fair that teens having legal sex with each other can be jailed for taking and sending photos of themselves doing it?
* Is it fair that some people become licensed by the state to be pharmacists, and then insist they don’t have to do their job if they hear voices telling them they shouldn’t? (that’s called “religious freedom” or “morality” if you agree, “discrimination” or “disqualified to do your job” if you’re a consumer trying to get your medicine)
* Is it fair that hundreds of hospitals licensed by their states refuse to offer certain legal medical services—based on “moral grounds”? (what if those “moral grounds” precluded giving blacks blood transfusions from white blood?)

Here’s a challenge to all presidential candidates: Commit to every American’s right to effective contraception. Unless, of course, you can name a private event that shapes a person’s life more than becoming a parent. Of course you can’t.

Interesting questions that neither candidate will ever go anywhere near.

Will Wilkinson & Jonathan Haidt: Free Will: Happiness and the Foundations of Morality

A cool discussion from Blogging Heads TV.

This synopsis of the discussion is from BPS Research:

Bloggingheads.tv have filmed another illuminating psychology-related discussion (see player below), this time featuring moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt and libertarian political analyst Will Wilkinson.

Haidt believes that our moral response to a situation is akin to an aesthetic reaction - it happens in the blink of an eye, and it's only after the gut reaction that we attempt to rationalise our feelings.

Underlying our moral responses are five foundations, which are calibrated at different levels depending on our cultural background. The first two, Harm/Care and and Fairness/Reciprocity, are universal, tend to correlate with each other, and are especially valued by liberals. The remaining three also tend to correlate with each other, but are less universal, tending to be valued more by conservative types. These are Ingroup loyalty, Authority/Respect and Purity/Sanctity.

This passage essentially presents a stage model of morality, which is cool. Read the rest of this recap, or just watch the video below.

Deconstruction

Impostor

Source: xkcd.com
He has this as the title section of the code: "If you think this is too hard on literary criticism, read the Wikipedia article on deconstruction."

TED Talks - Keith Barry: Brain Magic

Good stuff, as usual from the folks at TED.

First, Keith Barry shows us how our brains can fool our bodies -- in a trick that works via podcast too. Then he involves the audience in some jaw-dropping (and even a bit dangerous) feats of brain magic.
Keith Barry is a daring illusionist, whose astonishing stunts will make you question whether you can believe your eyes. No mere magician, Barry's repertoire ranges from outrageous stunts -- driving a car at full speed blindfolded -- to powerful attempts at mind control, including hypnosis and mindreading. The Irish magician's relaxed style and comedic delivery have made him an audience favorite worldwide, both in live shows and on his European television series, Close Encounters with Keith Barry, which aired in 28 countries. He's also had specials on MTV and CBS, and has tried his hand at acting as a murder suspect on CSI: Miami.

"Mr. Barry is not content merely to perform sleights of hand; he wants his audiences to know how deeply he embraces risk, how very life-affirming careering toward the canyon of eternity can be." ~New York Times

Do narcissists really hate themselves deep down inside?

An interesting article from Psychology Today that questions the notion that narcissists really suffer from very low self-esteem.

Do narcissists really hate themselves deep down inside?

By Joshua D. Foster on July 17, 2008 in The Narcissus in All of Us

You probably have a pretty good idea of what a narcissist is. They're arrogant, self-absorbed, and generally speaking they're not too pleasant to be around--at least not for long periods of time. If you're like most people, you probably also assume one additional thing. You probably think that narcissists dislike themselves deep down inside. In other words, narcissism is really just a mask that covers up deeply hidden insecurities and self-loathing.
If you think that this is true, then you're in good company. This has long been a standard conceptualization of narcissism within the psychological literature. A recent study by Keith Campbell, Jennifer Bosson, Thomas Goheen, Chad Lakey, and Michael Kernis (let's just call them Campbell et al. to keep things simple), however, challenges this assumption.

At this point the article explains the testing procedures used in the study, which are quite interesting, but likely only to geeks like me. Essentially they explain the use of the Implicit Associations Test (IAT for short), which tests responses to various statements in terms of response time.

So the IAT essentially measures how quickly you categorize good words with "like me" and bad words with "not like me." People who categorize themselves with good words very quickly are said to have high implicit self-esteem. People who take longer or who actually categorize themselves with bad words are said to have low implicit self-esteem.

OK, so that's the test they use, but the new research suggests there are some flaws in the test that have been overlooked. The flaws, it seems, are likely to create "false positives" for low self-esteem.

OK, back to narcissism. Prior research has shown that narcissists report very high explicit self-esteem (what they tell you about themselves), but lower implicit self-esteem (how they perform on the IAT). This research is consistent with long-standing beliefs about narcissism (e.g., psychoanalytic theories of narcissism) and seems to support the idea that narcissists don't really like themselves that much deep down inside.

Here's where a detailed analysis of psychological methods pays off. Campbell et al. noticed that a lot of the words used in the IATs of past studies were pretty communal sounding. Communal words are those that imply a connection between people. For example, the word "smile" might be considered communal because smiling facilitates social bonding. One thing that we know about narcissists is that they are not communally oriented. They're all about themselves. Indeed, past research shows that narcissists don't think very positively of themselves in terms of their relationships with others (i.e., communally). Therefore, if your IAT words are communal, then it should not be surprising that narcissists fail to quickly categorize the positive words as being "like me" and the negative words as being "not like me." In other words, communal IATs may be biased toward producing evidence of low implicit self-esteem in narcissists.

What Campbell et al. did next was create an IAT that used less communal words. For example, their IAT contained the positive word "energetic," which does not imply any sort of connection between people (i.e., the word "energetic" implies something about the individual, rather than relationships with others). What they found was that, sure enough, narcissists reported high implicit self-esteem using this less communal IAT. Again, this contradicts prior research showing just the opposite.

So what does this tell us about narcissism? First, we should take a step back and think about the methods that psychologists use to conduct their studies. Psychologists must frequently deal with the unseen and the unknown. While this makes psychology particularly interesting in our opinion, it can also make psychological research a little messy. Can we really be certain that Campbell et al.'s or anyone else's IATs really measure implicit self-esteem? Of course not. Nevertheless, Campbell et al.'s findings suggest that we should be skeptical of the notion that narcissism is always connected to inner doubt and self-hatred.

Without question, there are narcissists out there who really do hate themselves. We've all met people like this. People who say outlandishly positive things about themselves (e.g., "I'm smarter than Einstein") when it's obvious that they're covering up for a perceived deficiency (e.g., they dropped out of high school). But frankly, people can also be arrogant and conceited without any sort of deep-seated anguish. This isn't particularly pleasant to think about. Most of us-psychological researchers included-like to think that we live in a just world where bad things happen to bad people. In a just word, mean and nasty narcissists would experience inner turmoil and suffering. Unfortunately, we live in nothing close to a just world. And we suspect that many if not most people who say that they're awesome really think that they're awesome, even deep down inside.

(This post was coauthored by Ilan Shrira.)

Further reading:

Campbell, W. K., Bosson, J. K., Goheen, T. W., Lakey, C. E., & Kernis, M. H. (2007). Do narcissists dislike themselves 'deep down inside?'. Psychological Science, 18, 227-229.

Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.

Interesting.

Despite the new study, my spidey sense tells me that most narcissists do suffer from low self-esteem. It'll be curious to see if there are new studies based on this research.

Be a 21st Century Buddhist, Dalai Lama Tells Followers

An interesting little article from Phayul.com:

Be a 21st Century Buddhist, Dalai Lama Tells Followers
[Friday, July 18, 2008 09:40]

The Dalai Lama acknowledges greetings and respects before teaching Four Noble Truths. Photo:Kalsang Rinchen
New York, July 17, 2008 – The Dalai Lama said that it is important to preserve one’s own traditions and culture but it is wrong to close door to the outside world. He said that one should strive to become a 21st century Buddhist with both traditional values and modern education.

The 73 year old Tibetan leader was giving a teaching today on the Lord Buddha's Four Noble Truths at the sold-out Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The Dalai Lama told a crowd of about 6000 people that there is no escape from physical depreciation of one’s body but there are ways to train one’s mind in order to attain enlightenment. The Dalai Lama said that merely inviting a religious preacher and getting blessings will not help but the transformation of one’s mind will.

The Dalai Lama appreciated the ‘genuine interest’ in Buddhist tradition shown by the people of Himalayan region. The Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader lauded the people of Himalayan region for their unwavering faith in Buddha Dharma and Buddhist tradition.

The Himalayan Buddhist Community of New York comprises of organizations of people from Chum, Dolpo, Gyalsumdo, Manang, Nupri, Mustang, Sherpa, Tamang, Thakali, Walung and Yolmo. All these peoples live in Nepal today, and have close religious and cultural ties with the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama called Nepalese people and Tibetans ‘twin bother and sister’.

It's good to see the Dalai Lama dispelling some of the mythic/magical elements of Buddhism. I'm sure that those who hold those beliefs won't give them up, but if they focus more on mind training, there's a better chance of their evolving.

CrazyTalk - The Poem "I am"

Very cool.

Tom Tantol's incredible masterpiece using CrazyTalk incorporated with 23 various talking characters to recite John Clare's poem "I am".

Can We Be Addicted to Grief?

Can we become addicted to grief? I think I have gone through times in my life when I enjoyed being unhappy, sought it out. It appears that such behavior has something to do with the brain's reward system.

Some thoughts on this below the article.

Addicted to Grief?
When time doesn't heal, the brain's reward system may be playing a role
By Nicole Branan

Editor's Note: This story will be published in the October/November issue of Scientific American Mind.

Losing a loved one is always painful, but for most people time eventually heals the wounds. For about 10 to 20 percent of the bereaved, however, accepting and getting over a loss remains extremely difficult, even years later. Now researchers have come a step closer to elucidating the neurobiological underpinnings of this condition called complicated grief (CG). A new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, published online in May in the journal NeuroImage, shows that in CG patients reminders of the deceased activate a brain area associated with reward processing, pleasure and addiction.

A team led by Mary-Frances O’Connor of the University of California, Los Angeles, studied 23 women—11 of whom suffered from CG—who had lost a mother or sister to breast cancer in the past five years. While in the scanner, the women saw pictures and words that reminded them of their loved one. Brain networks associated with social pain became activated in all women, but in the CG patients reminders of the deceased also excited the nucleus accumbens, a forebrain area most commonly associated with reward.

O’Connor believes this continued neural reward activity probably interferes with adaptation to the new situation. “When we see a loved one or reminders of a loved one, we are cued to enjoy that experience,” she says. “But when a loved one dies, our brains have to adapt to the idea that these cues no longer predict this rewarding experience.” Scientists do not yet know why some people adapt better than others do.

O’Connor hopes the findings will lead to new treatment strategies that will “help the brains and minds of CG patients understand that the person is gone.”

OK, let's just for a moment assume to unthinkable -- that this not some symptom of faulty brain wiring, but rather is a learned behavior. People can and do learn to enjoy their role as the victim of loss.

While I don't quite agree with the following statement (I think empathy is incredibly healing, while idiot compassion is not), it presents a useful starting point, a working definition of the victim mentality:

My opinion is that I think empathy triggers our "behavior mirrors". That is if you get empathy from others you start to act the victim role and you start to feel worse because you want to reflect this idea that person has of you as being a HUGE victim. So with every person that feels sorry for you, your victim role is strengthened and with it you throw away any responsibility for your own emotions and behavior. Everything you try to achieve in this victim "mode" is doomed to failure because you have to proof for yourself constantly that you are so much a victim that everything fails and then you have one more thing to feel sorry for yourself about and that strengthens even more the victim inside you.

Empathy is not "feeling sorry for" someone, so that part is just plain wrong. When we adopt the victim mentality, what we have done is develop a "part" that takes on the role as a way to sheild us from our pain, rather than actually feel that pain. The other element tha the author is describing is what happens when we exercise idiot compassion, which Pema Chodron defined as follows:

It refers to something we all do a lot of and call it compassion. In some ways, it's whats called enabling. It's the general tendency to give people what they want because you can't bear to see them suffering. Basically, you're not giving them what they need. You're trying to get away from your feeling of I can't bear to see them suffering. In other words, you're doing it for yourself. You're not really doing it for them.

So allow me to unpack all of this.

When someone is in pain, many of us are not comfortable with that pain after a period of time, so we want the person we care about to move on. However we end up reinforcing the person's sense of status around the grief (or whatever emotion it is) by giving them attention. The added attention triggers the reward centers in the person's brain, just the same way an addictive chemical does.

The person grows accustomed to the attention s/he receives for being "hurt" or "sad." And because they don't want to release or (more imnportantly) face the grief (and lose their status), they accumulate triggers that remind of them they are the victim of pain/grief so as to generate more attention. All of this is unconscious on their part.

Rather than allow the person to be sad and hurt, we want to make them feeling better, so we lavish them with attention, which is idiot compassion. The real motive behind our actions is that we cannot be with their pain either, so we want it to go away for our sake more than theirs.

This may seem like a rather cynical explanation of the persistence of grief, but it's one that exists in the literature. Obviously, since only 10 to 20 percent of people get stuck this way, it doesn't happen to everyone, so why does it happen at all?

1. Some people are naturally addictive, and that includes things (besides drugs and alcohol) like attention, but also to specific feelings.
2. Some people have never learned how to be with and release hard emotions.
3. Some don't have good support (no idiot compassion) when they are grieving.
4. The interference of an actual addiction.

Those are the predominant causes -- and when my father died (I was 13), I had all four of these working against me. I got a bit of idiot compassion, but suffered a complete inability to be with my feelings and release them naturally. And I am a very addictive person.

I quickly discovered that drugs and drink numbed the pain, preferably in some high-octane combination. This made impossible to release the feelings, and it was several years before I got clean and began to work through the feelings that had been buried. Even then, it was a slow, painful process.

My advice? If someone is stuck in grief (of a lost loved one or relationship, or whatever) for more than a year, encourage them to seek therapy, someone to talk with about their pain. Most likely, they haven't ever really faced it, or they have gotten stuck in some form of vicitm mentality.

Steven Wright - One Soldier

I've always been a huge fan of Steven Wright's comedy, and he's also a talented film maker.

Excerpts from Steven Wright's "One Soldier", a short film he directed in 1999. A former American Civil War soldier whose job was to play music for a general, Wright reflects on war, life, death, and the absurdity of it all. WARNING - contains spoilers.

via videosift.com

From the Land of the Gods: Art of the Kathmandu Valley

[from the Divine Feminine, Durga]

Visit some very cool spiritual and religious art online: From the Land of the Gods: Art of the Kathmandu Valley, from the Rubin Museum of Art, New York.

In Hindu mythology, the Great Himalayan Range is the abode of the gods. Nestled in the lap of these mountains, and surrounded by a ring of snow-capped peaks, lies the Kathmandu Valley. Historically, the kingdoms of the Kathmandu Valley comprised the political, religious, and cultural entity now known as Nepal. Located between India and the region of Tibet, the valley acts as a crossroads of trans-Himalayan trade, the shared sacred site of various Himalayan religions, and one of the epicenters for much of Himalayan art. This unique position has fostered a tremendous amount of cultural, social, and religious exchange in Nepal, thus establishing a living creative tradition that is one of the single most important influences in Himalayan art history. From the Land of the Gods: Art of the Kathmandu Valley exhibits the finest examples of Nepalese art from the Rubin Museum of Art’s permanent collection, highlighting the variety of forms and subjects, techniques and media that emerged from the valley's creative matrix.
The exhibition also touches on the main religious traditions of the Kathmandu Valley, Hinduism (Shaiva, Vaishnava, and Shakta) and Buddhism, which have been integral in the artistic and culturally rich environment. Spanning more than a thousand years, the artistic legacy of the Kathmandu Valley is celebrated in the objects and ideas presented here.

Malla-Period Art
During the Malla period, which spanned more than five hundred years (1200-1769), trade, agriculture, religion, and culture flourished in the Kathmandu Valley, fostering tremendous growth in the production of sacred art. The Malla rulers were enthusiastic patrons of both Hinduism and Buddhism, contributing to the construction of public buildings, palaces, shrines, temples, and objects of worship. The Newar people—the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley—came to dominate most forms of artistry during this time both within the valley and throughout the greater Himalayas. Newar artists were masters at portraying the spiritual world in their metal casting, woodcarving, clay and stone sculpting, and painting. Highly sought after, they traveled extensively throughout Asia, creating religious art for their neighbors. As a result, the Newar style, characterized by sensuous, youthful bodies, sharp facial features, and elegant ornaments and jewelry, became one of the most influential in Himalayan art.

Inscriptions and Dating
Throughout the artistic history of Nepal, but more frequently in the later period, Nepalese patrons occasionally documented the specific circumstances involved in the creation of sacred religious art. These inscriptions, which included the date of the image’s creation, were usually placed on the front of paintings along with scenes depicting the donors; or around the base of sculptures. Prior to the 16th century, dated works are rarer than in succeeding centuries. Examples of these early dated works are crucial to art historians, as they provide benchmarks for stylistic analysis and comparative dating. Many of the works in this exhibition are inscribed and dated, providing art historians with names, places, dates, and benchmarks for style.

Here are a few images from the Buddhist collection:

Vajravali Mandala

Yogambara and Jnana Dakini

Padmapani Avalokiteshvara

There are many more images in this collection, as well as Hinduism, Ritual Aesthetics, Divine Feminine, and Shiva and Family.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Caffeine Test

The Caffeine Click Test - How Caffeinated Are You?

Created by OnePlusYou

You clicked 147 times in 30 seconds.

Damn, I can do better than that -- my clicking finger was getting tired near the end.

Authors@Google: Jonah Lehrer

Good lecture, if you can ignore the annoying background buzz: Art is the future of neuroscience.

Jonah Lehrer visits Google's Cambridge, MA office to discuss his book Proust Was a Neuroscientist. This event took place on June 11, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series.

Pages

Friday, July 18, 2008

Do narcissists really hate themselves deep down inside?

Thursday, July 17, 2008

You clicked 147 times in 30 seconds.